Note: This post was written in partnership with The Good Book Company. However, I’m writing it from my own personal experience as a pastor.
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What’s the most awkward passage for a pastor to preach?
Maybe one from Galatians where Paul uses the word “circumcision” approximately 57 times?
Or maybe a passage out of Leviticus regarding uncleanness?
Or maybe the one where David asks Saul what price he must pay to marry Michal (let the reader understand).
Nope, not even close.
It’s Hebrews 13:17, which says:
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
If a pastor preaches this passage, it seems incredibly self-serving, right? I mean, what pastor feels comfortable telling his congregants to obey and submit?
Why Pastors Quit
But here’s the deal. After spending 8 years as a pastor, I can confidently say that being a pastor is really, really hard. While you certainly experience much joy, you also must endure regular criticism, discouragement, attacks from Satan, and the soul exhaustion that comes from pouring yourself out for people.
With that in mind, there are certain things that us “regular” church members can do to increase the joy they experience in ministry. Ponder that for a moment. Your actions can be the difference between your pastor serving with joy or serving with “groaning” (as Hebrews says).
Personally, I want a pastor that is able to serve with joy.
As Christopher Ash says in his very helpful forthcoming book The Book Your Pastor Wishes You Would Read (but is too embarrassed to ask):
What will motivate a pastor not only to begin this work but to persevere in it with patient endurance, never turning his hand from the plough?…Answer: unless there is at least some whisper of joy in their hearts as they do their work, some spring of gladness in their step, they will never persevere to the end. And—and this is the point—it is we who will suffer.
In other words, if your pastor isn’t able to serve with joy, you will end up suffering.
Of course, all this raises the crucial question: what can church members do to make their pastor’s job a joy?
